By Virtue Fall
by labyrinthinemelange
Summary: When Loki falls to Earth, he plans world domination. But when he meets a pair of like-minded mortals, he is forced to question his actions, his motivations, and how far he is willing to go for power. Unrelated to the Thrice Blood Trilogy, LokixOC
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

"Sir!" Nick Fury strode over to the technician as the man's screen began to flash a red warning. "Something entering Earth's atmosphere."

Fury's brow furrowed as he leaned in over the technician's shoulder to examine the screen. "One of ours?"

"Negative, sir. NASA reports no satellites or space debris in this area." The technician squinted at the screen. "The disturbance appears to be some bizarre weather pattern...a super-tornado or a lightning storm or something."

Fury stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "The Bifrost." He turned to a pair of officers standing at ease by the door. "You two," he barked. The men snapped to attention. "Get Stark and Rogers on the line."

The men glanced at each other. "Now, sir?" one of them asked tentatively. "It's 0300 hours. Mr. Stark-"

"I am well aware of both the current time and Mr. Stark's feelings about being awoken at such a time, Lieutenant." Nick Fury gave the two a severe look. "Phone both of them, and Agents Romanoff and Barton while you're at it. There's somebody that I think they will all very much want to meet."

"Sir," the technician burst out as the two officers left the room, "these readings don't look anything like the Bifrost."

Fury spun about, his eye flashing. "What do you mean?" he said curtly. "You just described the disturbance as similar to a super-tornado or a lightning storm. Are those not the same descriptions used in connection with the Bifrost?"

"Affirmative, sir. But this isn't like any diagrams of the Bifrost I've seen." The technician frantically tapped at the screen and slid graphics around to allow Fury to see all the data, dialog boxes overlapping each other in a glowing collage of numbers and diagrams. "It's smaller, for one thing. And the readings are completely erratic; the electricity levels keep jumping between being off-the-charts and barely detectable. It's almost as if..."

"Almost as if what?"

The technician's eyes widened. "The Bifrost appears to be broken, sir."

Fury's expression darkened. "So noted," he muttered. "Dr. Selvig," he said loudly, "take a team out to the crash site, and make sure you have medical staff with you."

"Yes, sir."

Fury leaned back into the screen to peer at one of the smaller dialog boxes, nearly hidden beneath all the other data flashing across the screen. It was pulsing a frantic neon orange against a screen full of red. He frowned. "Open this window," he ordered, pointing his finger at the box in question. The technician tapped the box, bringing it to the foreground. "Enlarge it." The technician complied. Immediately, he let out a quiet gasp. "What does it say?" Fury demanded.

The technician shook his head. "It must be an equipment failure, sir. There's no way these readings could be correct."

Fury gritted his teeth. "What does it say?" he repeated.

The technician flinched at the edge in Fury's voice. "There's something inside the disturbance, a physical object hurtling towards the Earth."

"We already knew that," Fury said in a forcibly even tone. "What's the problem?"

"The temperature readings indicate that the object is made out of ice. But the visual representations...I'm not sure this is even an 'object' we're talking about."

"Show me."

The technician grimaced, but nodded nonetheless. "Yes, sir," he said resignedly. He tapped a quick series of buttons and pulled up a box that illuminated the screen in a blur of rainbow colors.

Fury stared at the screen, his whole body freezing as he took in the image on-screen. "Son of a bitch," he said under his breath. In the middle of the screen, right in the midst of the vivid rainbow of temperatures that made up the Bifrost was a dark space, an area of purple so dark it almost appeared black, an area with arms and feet and a head. Fury's eye blazed. "Someone stop Dr. Selvig before he leaves. Tell him to bring military personnel to the crash site. And call Coulson. This is his area of expertise."

"Sir?"

"Somebody's coming in to land from Asgard, and it sure as hell ain't Thor."


	2. I am determined to prove a villain

**CHAPTER ONE**

"Request status update from Coulson. Over."

The walkie-talkie crackled noisily.

Fury scowled. "Agent Coulson, this is Fury requesting an update on the status of the crash site. Please respond. Over."

A man's voice broke through on the other end, dampened by static. "I read you, Director Fury. This is Coulson. Over."

"Have you identified the unidentified falling object? Over."

"Affirmative. UFO appears to be human. Tall white male, between twenty and thirty years of age, with a small build and black hair. The subject is wearing armor and a helmet which both appear to be made of the same material as those of the man known as Thor. Subject was tentatively identified by Dr. Selvig as Loki. Over."

"Roger that. What is the condition of the subject known as Loki? Over."

"Currently unconscious, sir. The medical staff recommend immediate air transport to a detainment center with medical facilities. Shall I give the order for them to do so? Over."

Fury growled under his breath. "Negative. If Selvig's identification of the subject is correct, then you have a very dangerous man on your hands. Bring him in to headquarters. I'll put the building on lockdown and have a maximum security cell available. Over."

The walkie-talkie hissed for a moment before Coulson answered. "Fury, if we don't get this guy medical attention in the next hour, there might not be much left to interrogate." He didn't bother saying 'over.' His omission did not go un-noticed by Fury.

"Agent Coulson," Fury said clearly, "Doctor Selvig and his colleagues reported seeing Thor hit by a large vehicle at fifty miles an hour, and get back up again moments later. Whatever his injury is, by the time you get back to headquarters he'll be healed and dangerous. Over."

"He's not injured, sir. Over."

Fury's eye widened. "Not injured? You said he was unconscious. Over."

"He is, sir. Completely unresponsive to external stimuli. But he's not injured. The subject is suffering from severe frostbite. His body temperature's critically low and he's turning blue. Over."

Fury rubbed his hands across his face wearily.

"We're awaiting your orders. Over."

Fury sighed. "Call in an airlift. Take him to the nearest SHIELD base with medical facilities and inform me when you arrive. Over."

"Roger that, sir. Over and out."

Fury grimaced. "Why do I have the feeling I'm going to regret this?" he muttered darkly.

* * *

><p>Something was humming.<p>

Loki screwed his face up; perhaps he hoped that by closing his eyes hard enough, the noise would stop or get quieter. More likely, he couldn't think of anything else to do over the dull ache that made his entire body seem to be made of jelly. Either way, the noise was infernal and it had no business disturbing his rest. He decided that he was going to make his protest heard to whoever was making the humming noise. However, the moment his lips started moving, he realized that he could barely move his mouth much less his tongue and throat to produce anything remotely resembling normal speech.

"Mmmugh…Uhhhmmmnnn." He started slightly. He didn't know that voice—that strangled, muffled moan of protest that got lost somewhere between a whimper and a growl. The voice was pathetic. The voice was his. He was pathetic.

An inferno brushed across his forehead like a feather.

"He's regaining some consciousness." A faraway woman, her voice warped and distended by echoes as though her mouth was a great marble hall too vast for sound to traverse properly. "Should I give him more sedative?"

"It won't make any difference." A man with a voice that struck an odd chord in his memory. "I watched Thor drink enough—"

Loki lost the sound of the man's voice. He hissed as a dagger of pain twisted in his chest.

The man didn't seem to notice. Loki was vaguely aware of the man's voice continuing on, the words drifting in and out of his awareness. "—an elephant—not even staggering on the way out—drugs won't do any—need a whole pharmacy to—"

He stopped listening. The man's commentary wasn't worth the effort it took to hear. Far simpler to just drown out the man's voice, and the continual humming noise with it.

The inferno pried his eyelids apart. He flinched as a bright light tattooed itself upon his eyes; a blue blur danced across his vision as he was allowed to shut his eyes.

The woman was speaking again. Loki perked his ears up. Unlike the man, the information _she _provided might prove worth the effort of listening.

"—dilated." The woman paused. "This doesn't make any sense." A disc of metal pressed on his chest. He realized that some of his armor had been removed. "This man shouldn't be alive. Not at the temperatures we were reading."

"How are his vitals?"

"They're not normal, but they're stable. And apart from the temperature they're pretty consistent with what we got off of Thor."

Loki's hearing was suddenly drowned in a flood of sound like a wave crashing upon a beach. _I know that name. Thor._

_Odin. _All at once his memory came back, every ridge, every agonizing detail of his memory sharpened to a dagger's point.

"_You're my brother, and my friend. Sometimes I may be envious, but never doubt that I love you."_

"_You're my son... I wanted only to protect you from the truth..."_

"_What? Because I-I-I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night?"_

"_You could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!"_

"_You're a good son. And you mustn't lose hope."_

"_I never wanted the throne! I only ever wanted to be your equal!"_

"_No, Loki."_

His body trembled but he felt detached, as though his consciousness were floating overhead, pulling the frail strings of a puppet. He heard himself scream. But he couldn't feel a thing.

* * *

><p>"Mayday! Mayday! Please respond!"<p>

Fury crossed the room in three steps, snapping up the phone.

"This is Fury. What is your emergency?"

"It's the plane, sir. Something's gone wrong…we're having numerous equipment failures. We've had three power surges in the last three minutes. Request permission to land immediately."

"Negative," Fury said firmly. "ETA is less than two minutes away. Momentum alone could practically keep you aloft for that long. Maintain course."

He heard warning sirens going off on the other end of the line. "We've got sparks flying all over the place in here and we're losing altitude. Pilots recommend _immediate_ landing." A pause as Coulson hissed in pain. "And based on the second-degree burn to the leg I just suffered, I'm inclined to agree with them."

Fury grimaced. "Alright," he muttered. "Abort mission. What is your current location? I'll send another plane after you."

There was a long pause before Coulson replied. "We've lost our GPS system."

Fury groaned and closed his eye. "Do you see any landmarks that could help identify your approximate location?"

"Hang on. I'll find a window."

"_Sir! The landing gear is gone."_

Fury's eye shot open and widened in alarm. "What's that I'm hearing about landing gear? Coulson?" He heard the sound of Coulson setting the phone down on a table. "Damn it." He gritted his teeth and pressed his ear to the phone to try to hear what was happening on the plane.

"_It can't be broken." _Coulson's voice. _"How could the landing gear fail? It's mechanical. All of our other failures have been the result of electric malfunctions."_

"_The landing gear is in perfect condition, sir. But we can't lower it. Perfect condition or not, it's useless unless we can lower the gear."_

"_Damn it."_

"Coulson?" Fury barked.

He heard the other phone being picked up. "The landing gear's failed, sir. We're going to have to crash land as safely as we can."

* * *

><p>Loki growled at the inferno that tried to push him back onto the gurney as he struggled to stand. He would not be tied down anymore. He would not be restrained, he would not be weak. He would stand up on his own and show everyone what he was capable of.<p>

"Sir, you need to lie down right now! This plane is going to crash, if you don't let us secure you onto this gurney right now, you are going to die."

Loki opened his eyes. The inferno was not a fire, but a woman—the woman who had been speaking earlier, he assumed. Her hands may as well have been flames, the way they burned his icy skin. He shot out of the bed with a snarl and lunged at the woman, closing his hands around her neck. She let out a little squeak of terror. He could almost make out his own reflection in the woman's huge, shiny eyes as they stared back at him, frozen with fear.

"And what makes you think I want to live?" he asked in a low whisper.

The woman sobbed wordlessly, shaking her head at Loki mutely as though hoping he would read her mind and understand her pleas. He obliged.

"_Oh God, oh God, oh God, don't hurt me…somebody help me…I don't want to die like this…not choked to death…not strangled by a madman…"_

Loki smirked. He retreated from her mind. "Madman, am I?" he murmured.

The woman's eyes widened. He didn't have to read her mind to know what she was thinking now, doubtless wondering how he could have known what she was thinking, interspersed with her "oh God" mantra of terror. _Pathetic. _He almost considered killing her for a moment. But he remembered himself quickly: no need for un-necessary bloodshed. Death was messy; it was hard to explain away.

A blur in the woman's memory, on the other hand...in light of the accident, nobody would question her amnesia for a second. Head injury. Post-traumatic shock. The mortal doctors could probably fill a book with diagnoses that could feasibly explain her lapse of memory.

Loki pressed his fingers to the woman's temple. Her eyes glazed over. "You will forget me," he commanded her. "You will forget my face. You will forget what has just transpired, and everything that will transpire until I go away."

"Yes," she replied sleepily.

"Good girl." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Now why don't you go see what you can do about some head trauma?"

The woman nodded and shuffled out of the chamber into the next section of the plane, her eyes still foggy and glazed. _Mortal fool. _

The moment she left, he felt strangely hollow. He knew that the plane was crashing. In a strange way, he almost wished the crash would kill him. He had nothing to live for. He had lost everything, long before he let go of the staff and went plummeting through lost crevasses of the Bifrost that no one was meant to explore. But he had lived through that fall to Midgard somehow, and he knew that he would live through this. It would take more than a plane crash to kill a son of Odin.

No…not Odin. He was not Odin's son. He did not belong in Asgard. And he never would. Nor would he find a home in Jotunheim—he may have been born of Laufey, but he felt no love for the beast, no remorse for killing him. He felt more guilt when he went hunting in the forests of Asgard.

He was adrift. Welcome nowhere, hated everywhere. Fatherless. Born of hate and fear and secrets. The world had no place for him.

His heart pounded with rage. He could feel his skin begin to thaw, regaining its usual white tone. He almost sensed his nerves sizzling with the heat of his fury, the ice turning to steam before it had a chance to melt. He glowered out the window down at the earth beneath the plane.

_If I can't find a place in _their_ realm, then I'll _make _a place in this one. _

And then his senses were enveloped in the scream of twisting metal and breaking glass.

**AN: Read and review.**

**Also, I've had a lot of questions about this story, so I'll try to answer them all here. No, this story is not related to the Thrice Blood trilogy; it is a completely separate fic. No, this is not a LokixDarcy fic. Yes, this is an evil!Loki fic. Yes, I will finish writing "Kismet."  
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	3. Ill met by moonlight

**AN: Reviews are my motivation for writing! Well, okay, that and the fact that I love writing…but reviews help, both by encouraging me to write because I have an audience that reads my stories and by giving me feedback on things I need to change. Or if you have a question about the story, you can ask it in the reviews—I read every single review I get, and I usually reply to the ones that ask questions. So if you read this, please take an extra second to review and give me your thoughts on it! (It is set to allow anonymous reviews.)**

**CHAPTER TWO**

It was several seconds before Loki was able to breathe in the clouds of dust that filled the aircraft. He gasped for air the minute the dust began to settle, and inhaled a mouthful of dry, air full of strange-tasting molecules of debris. He grimaced. Even though the dust was beginning to settle, he could barely see anything except for the flash of a red and blue light somewhere in the distance. He stumbled forward blindly, stretching his hands out before him to feel his surroundings. As he turned around to avoid a dead end at the back of the plane, he wondered to himself why there would be _dust _in the air. The plane was made of metal; surely Midgardian craftsmanship had not deteriorated to the point where metal crumbled to dust on impact.

After two long, frustrating minutes, Loki found a tear in the wall. He tried to squeeze through; it was a few centimeters too small. He let out a growl at the wall.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before stepping forth into the breach. His skin flared pale silver as he became immaterial, but returned to his usual pallor the moment he was free of the metal skin of the plane.

He looked around. He was able to see a little bit now; most of the dust had fallen into small heaps upon the floor. He was also able to explain the source of all the dust, for it seemed that the plane had somehow managed to crash into the side of its destination. He was in a brick room painted an ugly orange-beige color…or at least, three-quarters of an ugly beige brick room, since the plane had completely demolished one of the walls.

Something small and chestnut-colored flitted across his peripheral vision. He spun about to fend off the newcomer, but his reflexes were not fast enough. The chestnut-colored person collided with his chest…not that their attack was effective. They bounced right off Loki's torso and fell to the ground.

Loki peered down at his attacker, not sure whether to be amused or annoyed. He could see now that the person was not, in fact, a faceless blur of color but a sprite of a woman with wispy hair and wide eyes that were both the same peculiar shade of reddish brown, wearing what appeared to be cadet blue pajamas. She scowled up at him, her gaze skimming across his bare chest for a second before falling upon his pants. She narrowed her eyes.

"You're not one of the suits. What the hell are you," she snapped, "some kind of live action role-player?"

He sneered. "I haven't the foggiest idea what you just said, but I can assure you that I am not it." He drew himself up to his full height and stared down the bridge of his nose at the woman. "I am—" He stopped speaking abruptly as a dog began barking down the hallway.

The woman jumped to her feet. "Now's probably not a good time to chat," she said hurriedly. "Let's get out of here. We can talk in the car."

"And why, pray tell, would I want to go with you in your puny horseless carriage?"

The woman glowered at him. "Well, for one thing, I have a getaway vehicle and you don't. And since I'm guessing you want to escape, I don't think you're really in a position to bargain here."

Loki considered. On one hand, he could probably kill this woman with his bare hands, and every guard in this prison building—at least, he assumed it was a prison based on the strange silver bracelets hanging off one of the woman's wrists…they had put something similar on Thor—and vanish into the night. On the other hand, this chestnut-haired woman had not so much as flinched when he glared at her. She could prove interesting. _And_ the people who brought him on the plane seemed to know who he was, who Thor was. Perhaps they had some means of detecting magic…

"Very well," he said. "Take me to your 'getaway vehicle,' and then we shall talk."

The woman grimaced. "Come on." Without another word, she raced from the room, sprinting down the hallway and over the piles of rubble as though she had choreographed her escape in advance.

Loki was struck by a strange thought as he followed the woman out of the building. Perhaps she _had _choreographed her escape in advance. He smiled to himself. He was very lucky. This little mortal could prove to be very interesting indeed.

* * *

><p>Fury paced slowly along the length of the twisted plane wreckage, watching as the firefighters' hoses doused the last of the flames that had turned the cockpit into something resembling charcoal. He stopped in front of Coulson, who was seated upon a large chunk of concrete that had fallen from what had once been the ceiling.<p>

"What are the casualties?" Fury asked.

Coulson sighed. "Between the prison and the plane combined? Four dead. One comatose. Two unaccounted for. The rest injured." He removed a wad of gauze from his forehead, revealing a sizeable gash. "Myself included."

Fury paused. "Agent Bernes?"

"Dead," Coulson said flatly. "So are the pilot, co-pilot, and one of the med staff, Dr. Lucia Hernandez."

Fury grimaced. "I'm sorry to hear that. This was his first field assignment. And Dr. Hernandez was a fine doctor." He crossed his arms. "What about Dr. Selvig?"

"In a coma."

"And the subject known as Loki?"

Coulson swallowed. "Unaccounted for, sir. He must have fled the scene immediately after the crash."

"He escaped?" Fury said angrily. "I was led to believe that Loki was in mortal danger, that he would die imminently if we didn't airlift him to a hospital."

"So was I, sir. So was everyone. He fooled us all." Coulson winced as he pressed the gauze too tightly against the cut on his forehead. "He's better than we gave him credit for."

"In that case, I'd better start looking." Fury stormed off.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see Jane Foster. If we're going to track down Loki, we're going to need all the help we can get."

"Sir, she has no military training whatsoever. What help could she be?"

Fury forced a smile. "It's not Foster that I want. It's Thor."

* * *

><p>Loki had been expecting the woman to spend most of the ride home shooting furtive glances at him when she thought he wasn't looking, but he was sorely mistaken. The woman spent the entire time staring straight ahead, never moving her foot from the pedal as she sped down the strip of gray road labeled "580."<p>

Instead, _he_ examined _her_ face and probed her mind, trying to determine whether it was uncannily good luck or grave misfortune that had caused the two of them to collide. Her face was not hideous to look at—it was pretty enough to file away as a possible tool later on—but it was nothing that would capture his personal interest: freckled, slightly tan skin with a nebula of dark blotches across one cheek, thin, nearly straight eyebrows frozen in an expression of skepticism and mild surprise, full lips whose size was partially concealed by the line the woman pressed them in, and wide brown eyes laced with a strange reddish hue. Unfortunately, her facial features gave him no clue as to her personality. He began to reach inside her mind…

"_Agh…"_ He instinctively hissed under his breath and yanked away from the woman's mind as though he had been scalded. Her mind was pure pain. If the Bifrost were still standing, he would swear upon it that this woman's brain must have been made of an agony concentrate, a cocktail of every self-destructive impulse that had ever been known to Aesir or mankind.

The woman finally turned to look at him. Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly; she had forgotten that Loki was in the car with her until he hissed.

Before Loki had a chance to recover from the pain and say something suitably condescending to her, she was looking at the road again and saying something.

"I'm Dev," she said, completely out of the blue.

"Are you?" Loki said mildly. He didn't say anything further.

Dev's brow furrowed. "Aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"Possibly, if I think I can trust you."

Dev snorted. "If you can trust me? What does either of us have to lose? I just escaped from a federal prison, and I'm guessing you were doing something similar, albeit _without_ a shirt on." Loki glanced down reflexively.

He cursed himself; why hadn't he remembered to magic some clothing into existence _before _there was a mortal around to see it? There was nothing to do about it now. As long as the mortal could see him, he would have to refrain from magic…and remain shirtless.

Dev didn't seem to notice his retreat into thought. "What were they taking you in for, anyway? Fraud or something?"

Loki smiled faintly. _She had no idea. _"Or something," he repeated noncommittally.

The mortal looked at him quizzically. She shook her head as she focused on the road ahead. "Well, I don't know if you're a drug dealer or a homicidal maniac or what, but I will say one thing." Loki raised an eyebrow. "You're chatty."

Loki chuckled under his breath. He was beginning to be rather glad he had decided against killing this particular mortal. Fragile and pathetic as she might be, her sharp tongue and complete disregard for tact might prove entertaining.

It was two long hours before either of them said another word. When Dev did speak again, it was to read a sign under her breath.

"_Berkeley_," she mumbled. "We're almost there."

Loki peered out the window skeptically; he didn't see anything but trees and hills. "This is your home village?"

Dev gave him a strange look. "You mean _city_?" She rolled her eyes. "Depends on how you define home. Strictly speaking, I was born in Orinda."

"I mean, do you currently reside in this _Berkeley_?"

"After a fashion." Dev pushed a button. Her vehicle began ticking as she turned off the road they had been driving along. Once she was on the other road, she turned the ticking device off. "It'll probably take them a couple of days to notice I'm gone in the chaos of the plane crash, but even so, it's a bad idea for a wanted felon to return to their apartment if they don't want to go back to prison." She made another turn. "But yes, we are staying in Berkeley. A friend and I have a second loft apartment under false names."

"We?" Loki repeated, barely suppressing a laugh.

Dev raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you have a better hideout?"

"No." _I could. _But he couldn't tell her that. She didn't know about magic.

"Alright then. _We _are staying with a friend of mine."

They drove in silence after that. Fifteen minutes later, Dev abruptly turned into a small asphalt lot surrounded by darkened buildings. She stopped the car.

Loki squinted out the window. "Is this where your friend resides?"

"No." She began rummaging through the debris under her seat. After a few seconds of frantic digging, she straightened up, a wad of black fabric clenched in her fist. "I'm just stopping for supplies."

Loki frowned. The last time he was on Midgard, the mortals obtained supplies from _stores _that were lit. "All of the buildings are dark," he pointed out.

Dev tugged the wad of black fabric over her head. It slipped into place, hiding all of her facial features except for her eyes, which looked out at Loki brightly through small holes in the fabric. "Felon," she replied, pointing to the mask. With that, she opened the door and got out of the car.

Loki hesitated. He wasn't entirely sure that this was a good idea. It wasn't that he had never stolen anything before. He had, many times in fact. But he had magic. When he stole things, he took the object he wanted and vanished without a trace: no mess, no witnesses, no repercussions. Admittedly, the mortal was probably quite good at theft for a human, based upon her criminal status and blasé attitude towards stealing in general. Then again…she must have gotten caught at some point.

Loki sighed and opened his door, his lip curling in distaste as he watched Dev stride into the darkness. _Ridiculous, _he thought to himself._ Stooping so low as to help a mortal. _But in truth, he had little alternative. Conscious though he might be, his fall from Asgard and subsequent plane crash left him feeling weak. The mortal offered him an easy refuge until he could rest and recover his magic…but that refuge was only useful if they both remained invisible. Getting caught in the midst of a criminal act would exponentially increase their visibility.

So Loki followed her into the night. And as he crept behind her, he couldn't help but wonder what supplies were so terribly important that this Dev woman couldn't wait until morning to buy them legally.


	4. If we shadows have offended

**CHAPTER THREE**

Less than ten minutes later, the two of them were back in the car, driving along the large strip of road. Although he would never admit it to a mere mortal, he was mildly impressed by Dev's skill at theft. The girl was a natural, her small, nimble fingers swiping assorted boxes and bags of supplies from the shelves without causing the adjacent objects to stir. It was a pity she was mortal, frankly. He wouldn't have minded having someone to do his dirty work.

Having a human companion did have its uses, however. He learned several things from watching Dev's heist. One, the humans had developed electronic boxes called "cameras" which were capable of visually and audibly recording any and all events in a given room. Mercifully, they were easy to dispatch, as Dev had demonstrated with a well-aimed can of tomato paste. Two, the humans had new ways of solving crimes. Once during the theft, Dev's hand had slipped a fraction of an inch, and her fingertips brushed across the shelf's surface. She cursed quietly at the contact and immediately rubbed the hem of her shirt on the spot where her finger had touched.

"Can't leave any fingerprints," she had muttered.

She did that quite often, he noticed…talk to herself. It seemed that whenever he turned around she was mouthing something under her breath, as though she was having a conversation with herself that could not be contained by the walls of her mind.

"Got a light?"

The sound of her voice jarred Loki from his train of thought. He sat up and extricated the side of his face from the cool glass of the window.

"What?"

Dev rolled her eyes at him. Loki noticed that she had something between her teeth, hanging limply out of the corner of her mouth, a short stick covered in white paper with a yellow band on the end.

"A light," she repeated impatiently. "A match. A Zippo. _Fire_."

"Oh." He remembered now. The mortals had a bizarre custom of inhaling the smoke from dried leaves. Many of the men in their great wars during the twentieth century had used the inhalants…but he didn't remember _women _using them. Then again, he didn't recall the women wearing pants either. Mortal women's place in the world must have changed since he last visited. "Certainly," he said lightly, smoothing over his momentary lapse in memory with a honeyed tone.

He reached into the small belt compartment at his hip and pretended to search for something. _Matches, _he thought, twitching his fingers slightly. _The small pieces of wood with red and white incendiary materials on the tip. _A box materialized in his palm. He indulged in a whisper of a smirk. Mortals could be so dense, never realizing the events that went on all around them that could not be explained by their "science."

"Will this do?" he asked, extending the box to Dev, expecting her to gratefully take the box from him to light the plants and feed her addiction to the toxic smoke.

She stared at him, her fiery eyes suddenly cold and flat. She paled.

Loki frowned. "Odd. I didn't realize inhalers of smoke were so picky about what they used to light their cigarettes."

Dev swallowed heavily. Her hands shook as she pulled the car over to the side of the road. "No. No, not again," she whispered frantically. Her voice thickened with suppressed tears. "Please, please, no. This can't be happening…" She swallowed again, gasping for air as a great weight was pressing down upon her chest. "It was _gone. _I got rid of you."

She stopped the car without warning, the brakes whining in protest as the vehicle ground to an abrupt halt. Loki allowed his body to lurch back and forth in keeping with the mortal pretense, but continued to stare at the mortal girl, no longer with amusement, but pure bewilderment.

"Got rid of me?" Loki repeated slowly.

"Not you…They were never exactly like you…But the others like you…You're one of Them."

Loki turned cold. She knew. _She knew_. How could she know? How could she possibly have found out? The Aesir and the frost giants had left their realm years ago, visiting only for the occasional dalliance, never revealing their true identities.

Dev screamed suddenly, causing Loki to jump so violently he hit his head against the roof of the car. "You were gone, damn it. They fixed me. The pills fixed me, you shouldn't be here."

Loki frowned, rubbing his head. "I see," he said without conviction. He wasn't focusing on speaking anymore. He was thinking, hard. He needed to know if this girl truly knew who he was...or if there was something else going on. "The others," he said slowly, measuring the effect his words had upon her. "Were they…er…'in your head' too?"

Dev looked at Loki, her face looking strangely gaunt. He couldn't see anything in her eyes; just darkness, a hollow void where there had been light moments before. "They were always in my head," she said quietly. "I suppose you were always in my head too, lying in wait for the right moment to strike…hovering on the edge of my mind, holding out for the opportunity to torment me like the others did. Stealing my sanity. Poisoning me. Deceiving me. Warping my eyes and my ears and my mind until I was a sobbing, quivering mess holding a gun to my own head."

"Your senses-wait, you think I'm a hallucination?"

Loki shut his mouth abruptly. He had said too much. He could use this to his advantage. If she thought he was a hallucination…he could do anything. This was an opportunity.

Dev didn't seem to catch his blunder. If anything, she seemed to expect it before he said a single word. "You really need to be more creative, you know. You specters…you always play the same games."

He smirked. It occurred to him that if he were to play the part of the girl's mind, tormenting her from within, he would have to act appropriately. He leaned towards her, leering with equal parts seduction and unspoken threat. "What sort of games?"

Dev looked away from him. She made a face as though she were going to be sick. Loki resisted the urge to chuckle; the girl's specters must have taunted her with empty promises of passion before. It was really her loss, he supposed.

"Always the same ones," she said coolly. "'What makes you think I'm a hallucination?' 'How can you be sure I'm just in your head?' 'Why do you say I'm not real?' Traps. Trying to trick me into believing them again…making me think that they're real."

"Ah," Loki said, his grin widening. "Let's pretend that I've never played these games you talk about. I would like to try them out myself."

Dev glared at him, but didn't reply.

"Why don't I begin with the first one, hm?" He tilted his head slightly. "What makes you think that I am a figment of your imagination?"

"The matches," Dev said quietly. "I went through the compartment on your belt when you were looking at the magazines in the store." Loki started. He almost burst out with a protest, wondering how she could have possibly pickpocketed _him _with his heightened senses. But she continued, apparently oblivious to his shock. "I didn't find a matchbox. Either you made one from thin air, or you're a hallucination."

_Oh, the irony_. "Or I could have stolen one from the store," Loki pointed out, smoothing over his facial expression into his previous, salacious look.

"Not likely." Dev raised an eyebrow at him. "The boxes in the store were made of cardboard. Your matchbox was wooden."

"This is your proof?" Loki said derisively. "A matchbox?"

"Believe me, that's just the start of the weirdness."

"Do tell."

Dev gestured vaguely. "You…your clothing—the little clothing you bothered to wear, I might add, which is exactly the sort of thing They like to do to mess with me—looks like something out of a Renaissance Faire. You talk like you're some kind of Victorian-era time traveller. You walked through the side of a plane…" She shook her head. "Again, I'm not coming up with many explanations beyond 'alien magician' and 'hallucination using anachronisms to mess with my perception of reality.'"

"Big words from a little girl."

"Little girl? I'm twenty-seven!" Dev said indignantly. She scowled. "Oh, what am I doing? I'm arguing with a hallucination. I should be calling a psychologist." She pulled out a small box and began pushing buttons.

Loki's eyes widened. _No. _Nobody else could know where he was. He snatched the phone from her.

"What the hell—"

"If I were a hallucination," Loki said, slightly breathless from the sudden lunge, "would I be able to do that?"

Dev licked her lips anxiously. Her eyes flickered, the void in her eyes drawing back just long enough to allow sparks of light to shine through. "I don't know," she stammered. "Maybe that phone is just a hallucination too." But her voice was no longer certain.

"Is it?" Loki rose from his seat and leaned in towards Dev, so close that he could feel her breath on his face. He put his hand on her face. "Then what is this?"

Dev pushed his hands away, a strange look on her face. "I don't understand," she whispered. "I've never been able to _feel_ Them before. But I can feel you. I ran into you earlier. Your weight pushed me to the ground." She shook her head. "Why can I feel you?"

Loki pressed his lips together. There was nothing for it. The girl was going to call somebody with the box if he didn't tell her the truth soon, and then everyone would know. His veil of secrecy would be gone. "What if I told you," he said in a low voice, "that you were right?"

"You're admitting you're a hallucination?"

"No," Loki said, smiling. "Not about that. Something else you said."

Dev's brow furrowed. Loki could read the confusion in her eyes.

"A matchbox produced from thin air," he prompted her, "by an alien magician."

Dev's eyes darted madly across Loki's face, trying to take in every facial feature at once and failing. "What are you saying?"

Loki paused. "I am no figment of your imagination, mortal. I am real and you are correct: I did produce that matchbox from thin air, and I did walk through a wall."

Dev shook her head. "I don't believe you."

Loki let out a bark of laughter. "You're a good thief, mortal, but a terrible liar. You do believe me. But you're afraid. You're afraid that you've been taken in by your own imagination again. You fear that you're losing your grip on your own sanity. I assure you, you are not."

"This is crazy," Dev said, her voice shaking.

"Perhaps. But you won't go to a doctor. You're too curious. You want to see what happens. Secretly, you hope that you're right. You want me to be real. You can sense that I'm dangerous…and you love danger. It's your lifeblood. It feeds you, invigorates you. You are addicted to the thrill of living on the edge, always in danger of slipping. Falling off the edge of a cliff, down the slippery slope. Or worse yet, being pulled back from the edge, back into sanity, back into prison. Back into a cage of the mundane." He paused, letting the lull of his words and his voice settle into Dev's mind. She seemed to be staring through him, looking at some reflection of herself off in the distance. "You won't go to a doctor."

Dev blinked suddenly, realizing where she was and who she was talking to. She furrowed her brow as she examined Loki for any hint of deception.

"Maybe you're real," she said, "but I have to be sure." She turned the keys in the ignition. "Strap in."

"Dare I ask where we are going?"

"To visit a friend of mine. If you're not real, he can tell me. If you are…" Dev's eyes gleamed. "I think he'd be _very_ interested to meet you."

Loki hesitated a moment. On one hand, he didn't want anyone else to know who he was. On the other hand, he had little other choice if he wanted the mortal to believe him without any magical interference on his part—which would be a pity, given her talent as a thief and as a way for Loki to observe mortal customs.

He relented. "Very well."

Dev gave Loki a small, nervous smile that looked more like a grimace and pulled back onto the big road. After a few minutes of driving, she turned to look at him once more.

"By the way…I never did get a name."

"You may call me Loki."


	5. Thinking makes it so

**CHAPTER FIVE**

The music was infernal.

Loki wrinkled his nose. As far as he recalled, the last time he was on Midgard, the music had been more…musical. If it weren't for the throngs of scantily clad girls and swaggering young men dancing (and he hesitated to call what they were doing "dancing"), he wouldn't have recognized the series of sounds thudding through his body as a song.

Dev didn't seem to care for it either. She wrinkled her nose and shouted something at him; even with his heightened senses, it was a strain to hear her.

"Ugh. I forgot how much I hated the DJs here."

He frowned. "What are DJs?" he bellowed.

Dev turned to squint at him. "WHAT?"

"I SAID…" He sighed. There was nothing for it. Trying not to wince, he reached out to touch the mortal's mind. A blinding wave of pain forced his eyes closed for a moment…and then it was gone.

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. It seemed that the barrier of pain was only a thin layer around the outermost edges of her consciousness…odd.

Dev was giving him a strange look. He realized that he must look very strange standing there, pursing his lips, to someone expecting a reply. He tightened his mental grip upon the girl's thoughts.

_I said, 'what are DJs?'_

Her eyes went as wide as saucers.

"What the fu—"

_Calm yourself. It's me. I felt that this was a more convenient mode of conversation than attempting to speak over this blasted—_

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

_Hip-hop._

_What?_

She rolled her eyes.

_The music. It's called hip-hop._

_So this _is _supposed to be music? That wasn't an unreasonable conjecture on my part?_

_You know, this really isn't helping your case as far as the whole 'not a hallucination' thing goes._

_I don't expect it would. However, your friend over there might._

She glanced over at a soft-featured man with sandy hair who kept looking out over the crowd of dancers as though searching for someone, his blue eyes crinkled up with concern.

_We'll just have to see—wait a minute. How did you know that was him?_

_You just looked at him. _

The image of rolling her eyes rippled through Dev's mind and into Loki, but apparently she decided a subtle gesture would be futile in such poor lighting. Her eyes twitched, but did not move.

_But how did you know he was at the bar? Or were you bluffing?_

Loki considered telling the girl he had read her mind, but it was much more difficult to lie believably when the target of the falsehood was connected to his thoughts.

_There are a lot of men at that bar, looking for someone to spend the night with. Your friend seemed to be looking for someone specific. He was also the only one looking at women's _faces_, rather than just their figures._

_Charming._ Another eye-rolling impulse floated across her thoughts.

_Since you are the expert on modern customs, I defer to you: which do you think would go over better: a psychic link or audible conversation?_

_Real conversation. The audible part might be a problem, though. If we talk at the bar we'll either be unable to hear each other or we'll be overheard by others. Which could be a problem, given the whole 'escaped from prison' thing._

_Mm. The 'alien with magical powers' aspect might prove a tad problematic as well._

Her lip curled slightly. _You'd be surprised how much can be explained away by techno-babble when stupid people are involved. _

_Techno—?_

_Never mind. I'll explain later. How do we talk to Ben?_

_Leave it to me. Be warned, I will have to let go of your mind momentarily for this to work at a distance._

_You'll wha—?_

The sound of her voice was cut off abruptly. He let out a breath he had been subconsciously holding in. He loathed telepathic connections. They were so disgustingly personal. It made his skin crawl. With a final shudder to shake away the last of his distaste for mental connections, he reached out to touch the young man's mind. He braced himself for another blaze of pain. It never came. He discreetly sighed with relief. The girl's mind had been a razor blade. First contact with the young man's mind was like touching a cloud by comparison.

As he pushed his way through the soft exterior of the young man's thoughts, the fluff began to melt away. He felt the young man's thoughts take shape until…

_Where is she? She's supposed to be here by now. God, I hope she's okay. If she got hurt..._

Loki tried not to gag. No wonder the young man's outermost thoughts had been so easy to push through; he was practically floating off the ground every time the image of the mortal girl crossed his mind. Loki could have sworn he could taste _sugar _in the back of his mouth. It was positively revolting.

_She's here, _Loki said brusquely.

_What the—?_

Before the young man could reject Loki's connection, he forced himself deeper into the mind, pushing consciousness aside and taking the reins of the young man's actions.

_I should go through the back door and climb up the fire escape to the roof._

The young man's eyes glazed over.

_I should go through the back door and climb up the fire escape to the roof._

Loki smirked: all too easy. Retreating as quickly as he could—the sugary taste was beginning to make him quite nauseous—he snapped back into his own body and mind. Across the room, the young man jolted slightly as though he had touched a live wire. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at the back door, looking very confused.

Loki felt a poke at his shoulder. He turned around.

Dev was shouting something at him. He couldn't hear a word over the music.

He sighed.

_What?_

—_just do what I think you did? You sicko! You just Jedi-mind-screwed Ben. That is not okay! These are _not _the droids you're looking for!_

_Are you quite finished?_

_No, I am _not _finished. You can't just go messing around, controlling people's—_

Loki snapped his fingers. Dev made a series of very strange faces as she continued to mentally scream at him, gesticulating with her face. After a few seconds, her expression turned to one of shock and horror as she realized that Loki wasn't hearing her protests.

She punched him in the chest.

He raised an eyebrow at her sternly.

_Don't do that again._

She glowered at him, but she did not attempt to hit him again.

_Good girl._

She held up her hand in a gesture that he imagined must be an insult in her culture.

_Do you wish to meet with your friend, or not?_

Dev crossed her arms and continued scowling at him. Finally, she relented. Her shoulders slumped. Loki snapped his fingers again.

_Fine. _She narrowed her eyes. _But if you ever try to pull that mind-control stuff on me, I'll kick your ass._

_I have no doubt you will try to. Follow me._


End file.
